In recent years, there has been a tremendous proliferation of computers connected to a global network known as the Internet. A “client” computer connected to the Internet can download digital information from “server” computers connected to the Internet. Client application and operating system software executing on client computers typically accept commands from a user and obtain data and services by sending requests to server applications running on server computers connected to the Internet. A number of protocols are used to exchange commands and data between computers connected to the Internet. The protocols include the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and the “Gopher” document protocol.
The HTTP protocol is used to access data on the World Wide Web, often referred to as “the Web.” The World Wide Web is an information service on the Internet providing documents and links between documents. The World Wide Web is made up of numerous Web sites around the world that maintain and distribute Web documents. A Web site may use one or more Web server computers that are able to store and distribute documents in one of a number of formats including HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and MIME HTML (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension formatting of HTML objects). HTML and MIME HTML documents can contain text as well as images, stylesheets and other objects, such as graphics, audio clips, and video clips.
A Web browser is a client application, software component, or operating system utility that communicates with server computers via FTP, HTTP, and Gopher protocols. Web browsers receive Web documents from the network and present them to a user. Internet Explorer, available from Microsoft Corporation, of Redmond, Wash., is an example of a popular Web browser.
An intranet is a local area network containing Web servers and client computers operating in a manner similar to the World Wide Web described above. Additionally, on an intranet a Web browser can retrieve files from a file system server executing on the same computer as the Web browser, or on a remote computer on the local area network. A Web browser can retrieve files on the local area network using the “FILE” protocol, which comprises file system commands.
Recently, it has become common for computer users exploring the Internet to save HTML Web pages to their local hard drives or other local storage media. This is primarily due to: (1) the delays associated with accessing Web pages on the internet; and (2) the fact that many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) charge users a fee for time spent online. This fee is in addition to the telephone charges normally incurred by a user. Thus, it is sometimes more economical for a user to save a Web page to the user's local storage medium for later viewing; thereby, minimizing the user's online fees and telephone bill.
However, managing Web pages saved onto a local hard drive can be problematic, even for experienced users. This is because each component of an HTML file must be stored in a separate file, and because Web pages are often composed of a main HTML file as well as several supporting files such as: images, stylesheets, objects and/or other HTML files. Consider the Web page illustrated in FIG. 2. This Web page is composed of a main HTML file and three supporting files. These supporting files are bitmap images: triangle 200, square 202 and circle 204. The inherent nature of HTML places a burden on users to manage all parts of an HTML file, including the main HTML file and its supporting files 200, 202 and 204. For example, a user might delete the main HTML file 302, but then forget to delete its corresponding support files 200, 202 and 204. Similarly, if a user performs an operation (e.g. delete, cut, copy, move, undo, restore, etc.) on the main HTML file 302, but forgets to perform the same operation on the supporting files 200, 202 and 204, the HTML file will be unreadable.
In the past, four different methods have been used in an attempt to make Web pages easier to manage. The first approach is used by Xanthus in its IWrite product. IWrite creates a separate folder for each saved Web page. Each supporting file is then stored in this separate folder. Users can then manage this single folder in the operating system in lieu of managing each separate file. Using the example Web page shown in FIG. 2, the main HTML file (“foo.htm”) and its supporting files 200, 202 and 204 would all be stored in the same folder or subdirectory. The limitations of this approach are: (a) typical users have trouble making the required intuitive leap from “Everything is in one folder” to “I need to manage this entire folder to manage the Web page;” (b) if the typical user is looking for a Web page, the user often does not think to open the folder that contains the Web page; and (c) users who do not understand the approach spend a lot of time opening and closing folders searching for their needed files and information.
Another approach is used by Microsoft Corporation in its FrontPage® Editor software. In FrontPage® Editor, names are assigned to supporting files in order to make their relationship to the main file clearer. Using the example Web page shown in FIG. 2, FrontPage® Editor would save the main HTML file as “foo.htm.” FrontPage® Editor would then change the filenames of the supporting files 200, 202 and 204, so that their relationship to the main HTML file would be clearer. For example, the filenames of the supporting files might be respectively changed from “triangle.bmp, square.bmp and circle.bmp,” to “foo_triangle.bmp, foo_square.bmp and foo_circle.bmp.” The limitations of this approach are: (a) in practice, users do not realize that all of these files are interrelated, so they still fail at basic file management practice; (b) there is a tremendous amount of clutter from all of the supporting files, so users have problems finding the main HTML file; (c) this approach is not supported on older operating systems that do not support longer filenames; and (d) this approach is burdensome because management of a given Web page requires that a user individually manage each file.
Still another approach is used by Trelligram. Using Trelligram's approach, all files that make up a Web page (i.e. the main HTML file and all supporting files) are saved in a single, self-extracting file. Thus, the users only need to manage one file. The limitations of this approach are that: (a) every Web page has added overhead for the extracting program, increasing the disk space used and the Web page's download time; (b) Web pages always need to be extracted before they can be viewed, because the Web pages are not stored in HTML format, this increases the delay associated with viewing the Web pages; and (c) some companies do not allow executables to be run from the Web, thus, this solution does not work for them.
Another approach is to store all the files that make up the Web page as MIME HTML, an Internet standard for bundling all the files that make up a Web page into a single file. Users then just need to handle a single file that contains their entire Web page. The limitations with this approach are that: (a) MIME HTML is only readable by some Web browsers; (b) MIME HTML takes longer to save and load than standard HTML; and (c) MIME HTML is not readable by existing HTML editors.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and system that allows computer users to manage linked HTML files and folders.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a file and folder structure for storing primary files (such as main HTML files and Web pages) as well as their corresponding support files.